alleluia

[jovahs_heiress]

Alleluia and Caleb tell their children about magic, one by one. Isabella meets with each one to clarify a few matters. She gives Ezra a job, at the Eyrie - it is convenient to have more people around who know her secrets. And the youngest, an angel girl named Naamah, just nineteen (a last minute surprise to her parents), wants someone to talk to who is more familiar with magic than her but isn't up to their neck in it like Isabella or Micaiah - or even her own parents, who have been to all those Bell parties.

Isabella thinks about this.

[Nathaniel?]

Comments

[manofmyword]

"Sure you can," he says, grinning. "So while you're here, wanna see any more of the world? We could go hang out in an emptyish capital site for a while."

[pythbox]

"Sure," says Nathaniel, smiling a little. He tosses his rubber band ball into the air and catches it.

[manofmyword]

The Joker waves to Aedyt and then teleports himself and Nathaniel to a random capital site not currently in use.

[alicornucopia]

No capital sites, these days, are truly empty; they all have some full-time staff, combinations of wolves and nonessential vampires. The Australian site doesn't have any permanent wolf residents in it, but it has a couple of vampires who can talk to visitors and give out pamphlets and generally serve as Golden Coven presence.

One of them is where they land.

She blinks at them.

"Hello," Renata says, tilting her head.

[pythbox]

"Um, hello," Nathaniel says, blinking back at her. "I'm Nathaniel."

[alicornucopia]

"I'm Renata," she says. "Um, welcome to the Australia capital site of the Golden Empire."

She is definitely looking at Nathaniel more than at the Joker.

[pythbox]

Yes. Nathaniel can see that. He is not sure how to feel about it, and therefore defaults to 'vaguely worried'.

[manofmyword]

The Joker... observes the proceedings.

[alicornucopia]

"You're pretty," says Renata to Nathaniel after a long silence.

[pythbox]

Nathaniel blushes.

"Um. So are you," he says.

[alicornucopia]

She smiles.

[pythbox]

He smiles, too.

[alicornucopia]

Renata appears perfectly unselfconscious about just sort of staring at him. She's mostly looking at his face, although occasionally her eyes make lazy sweeps down and back up.

[pythbox]

Nathaniel's blush is slowly developing into a blushier blush.

[manofmyword]

"Well, this is adorable," the Joker remarks.

[alicornucopia]

Renata tilts her head when the Joker talks, but she doesn't look at him.

[manofmyword]

Heh. He smiles.

[pythbox]

Nathaniel glances at the Joker and dares to observe, "You know something."

[manofmyword]

"I do!" he agrees.

[alicornucopia]

Renata has met the Joker before and apparently knows everything she wants to about what he knows. She has a question for Nathaniel. "Do you have all those magic wards on you?"

[pythbox]

"...um, what?" he says nervously.

[alicornucopia]

"There's a curl on your forehead and I want to put it with your other hair, but I don't want to accidentally hurt you," she explains.

[pythbox]

He gives the Joker a pleading look.

[manofmyword]

The Joker snaps his fingers theatrically.

"All magicked up," he says.

[alicornucopia]

Renata moves her hand almost comically slowly, nonetheless, like she's trying to adjust for human tracking speed but doesn't know how much. She sweeps the curl from Nathaniel's forehead in among his other hair. She smiles again.